Thames highway

This gallery acts as an archaeological exploratory of the early ports of London - from Roman settlement of AD43 to the Saxon port revealed beneath Covent Garden and the historic ports of Norman and Medieval London excavated at Billingsgate and Lower Thames Street.

Artefacts and documents detailing these early trading settlements beside the Thames are displayed here and visitors are invited to explore further by interacting with archaeologists on screen at a series of multimedia points located in the gallery. Tony Robinson, of television's Time Team introduces the on-screen explorations. The gallery has been designed to support National Curriculum studies in Science, Geography and History.

A spectacular feature of the gallery is a 1:50 scale model of Old London Bridge, the first stone structure over the Thames. One side of the model illustrates the state of the bridge and its buildings at around 1450, the other - hidden until visitors pass through into the next gallery - the bridge in all its Tudor glory.